But this fall there was a break in the case, and on Wednesday, Santa Cruz police detectives told KSBW reporter Phil Gomez they finally solved the murder mystery’s biggest question: Who was “Pogonip Jane?”

A teenage girl who had a heart tattooed on her left hand was bludgeoned to death in Santa Cruz’s Pogonip Park in 1993. Her naked body was left in a shallow grave.

No one filed a missing child report, so Santa Cruz was unaware of the girl’s demise until January 1994, when two friends went searching for mushrooms. The two women attended the annual Santa Cruz Fungus Fair and felt inspired to search for wild mushrooms in Pogonip Park near UC Santa Cruz. Instead of mushrooms, the hikers’ path lead them to a body hidden in the woods.

“It was the most terrifying thing. When I got to the site I couldn’t believe my eyes,” hiker Monika Maeir said. “I rushed back to Lauri (Duncan) and I said ‘I think I found a body.’”

Lauri Duncan said it looked like “Pogonip Jane” had been fleeing and trying to run away.

After two decades of mystery, Santa Cruz Police Deputy Chief Steve Clark told KSBW her identity has been confirmed. “Pogonip Jane” was Kori Joann Lamaster, aka, Kori Joann Bowman. She was 17 years old, lived in Pacifica, Calif., and had run away from home.

“Although Kori went missing in 1993, her family didn’t file a missing person report with the Pacifica Police Department until 2007,” Clark said.

Clark did not say why it took Kori’s family 14 years to report her missing. Her family declined to comment to KSBW.

While trying to identify the girl, investigators determined the victim was a petite white girl who had short brown hair and pink-painted fingernails. Investigators reconstructed what the girl looked like with a clay model molded from the victim’s skull. This was not an easy task because someone had crushed the girl’s skull with a metal pipe.

In 2008, Kori’s mother gave a DNA sample to Pacifica police and it was sent to the California Department of Justice’s DNA lab. In October 2013, the lab found a familial DNA match to “Pogonip Jane” and alerted the Santa Cruz Police Department.

With the DNA hit, Santa Cruz Police Detective Bruce Cline tracked down her cousin. The cousin had a fingerprint card obtained from Kori when she was a child. It perfectly matched three fingerprints lifted from the victim's decomposed body during a coroner’s autopsy.

The original lead investigator on the Pogonip murder mystery was Detective Loran “Butch” Baker. In 2010, Baker told KSBW that the case always bothered him and he wished he could give the victim’s family closure.

“I think about it all the time,” Baker told KSBW in 2010. “I want to be able to tell somebody your daughter is found but she’s not coming back.”

Tragically, Baker was murdered earlier this year by a military veteran who had recently moved to Santa Cruz and was being investigated for sexually assaulting a co-worker.

"Butch was a friend and mentor to me," Cline said Wednesday. "It feels good to help him put a name to who he deemed 'Pogonip Jane.'"

Kori Joann Lamaster’s identity is now confirmed… but who killed her?

No one has ever been arrested. But the SCPD kept the case open, and detectives have two long-term "persons of interest."

During the last few months of her life, Kori was traveling along California’s coast from Pacifica to Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara, a forensic hair analysis revealed.

“We identified a father and son who were witnessed to have traveled with Kori around the time of her death,” Clark said. The two men are Wayne White, and his son, Greg White.

Greg White has since died, but Wayne White is still alive and resides in Tennessee.

“We are looking for information from anyone who might have had contact with Kori as she traveled through the Santa Cruz area around 1993,” Clark said. “We are interested in talking with anyone who may have information about this father and son.”

Now that Kori’s photograph has been released to the public and published in the media, police have a shot at finding more witnesses and finding justice for Kori.

Today, Kori’s body remains buried in a grave at Soquel Cemetery. Her headstone is blank.

Forty years ago, one of the greatest boxing matches in history took place in an unlikely setting: the capital of the Philippines. Muhammad Ali's epic win over great rival Joe Frazier in 1975 became known as the "Thrilla in Manila."